A data center may be defined as a location, for instance, a room that houses computer systems arranged in a number of racks. These racks are configured to house a number of computer systems which typically include a number of printed circuit boards (PCBs), mass storage devices, power supplies, processors, micro-controllers, and semi-conductor devices, that dissipate relatively significant amounts of heat during their operation.
It is often beneficial to track the temperatures of cooling airflow supplied into the computer systems to generally ensure that the computer systems remain below specified temperatures. Conventionally, the airflow temperatures have been detected through use of relatively large numbers of temperature sensors positioned throughout the data center. One problem associated with this approach is that the costs in obtaining and installing the temperature sensors are typically prohibitively high. Another approach to tracking the airflow temperatures is to calculate the airflow temperatures through use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) programs. This approach, however, often requires the CFD programs to run for many hours due to the complexities involved in calculating the airflow temperatures and is thus unsuitable for many applications.
The problems associated with conventional airflow temperature tracking approaches are further exacerbated with the recent trends toward consolidation and increased computer system densities in the data centers. That is, recent trends in data center design require either greater numbers of temperature sensors or greater computational abilities to track the airflow temperatures in data centers.